New Styles - Lemmings Faithful UPDATE

[92Dexter11]

Hey everyone!
I'm so excited to announce my latest style pack, 'Lemmings Faithful'!

As its name suggests, the gimmick behind these five new styles is that they are trying to be as faithful as possible to the original and ohno styles. This basically means that these styles have a very strict and rigid colour palette, following the same rules as the classic styles as closely as possible, whilst still being visually and thematically distinct.
To clarify, all of these styles:
-Have terrain pieces which use a shared palette of 8 colours maximum.
-Have objects which use those 8 colours, as well as the 'fixed' default colours, much like the classical styles.
-Each RGB colour value used is divisible by 16, resulting in a much more limited selection of possible colours.

(Namida elaborates on this much more in this thread: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=6686.new;topicseen#new)

The new styles are:

Autumn - Heavily inspired by the 'orig_dirt' style, as well as 'ohno_rock', this is a naturalistic style - a garden during autumn, or a field ready for harvest - with bright golden foliage.

Spoiler

Circuit - A technological style, similar to 'ohno_brick' and 'ohno_bubble', this one features a lot of green motherboards, wires and batteries.

Spoiler

Mosaic - This one is inspired by 'orig_dirt' and 'orig_pillar' - the ancient ruins of a lost civilisation, with a heavy emphasis on water and blue tiles.

Spoiler

Palace - This borrows elements from 'orig_pillar' and 'orig_marble', although it has a much different colour palette! It's rich and palacial, with white marble and gilded mahogany.

Spoiler

Rust - This one's the most similar to 'orig_crystal', in that its palette is all mainly one colour, allowing for more detailed shading. It also has pieces similar to 'ohno_bubble'. It's not quite a junkyard, not quite a sewer and not quite a shantytown!

Spoiler

Link to the style pack:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/t6t4yqj7t7bh6377av0ji/styles-LemmingsFaithfulV4.zip?rlkey=ykjuvcr5cxeudj6ltz1msllwe&st=3q3b167b&dl=1

I've had a bunch of ups and downs when making these styles - at one point I had to completely remake each colour palette from scratch after I mistakenly used too many colours. That was a huge upset, but it definitely taught a lot about reducing a colour palette. Overall, this was a really fun challenge, and I'm really proud of how they all turned out - I feel as though these styles are my best work. I've had a blast making these, and I hope you enjoy using them too!

Be sure to also check out the accompanying level pack, meant to show off each style. The levels are quite easy, but have some very difficult talismans for more experienced players who want a challenge!

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=6714.0

Let me know what you think!


Update - version 3.2

Spoiler

Hey everyone!

I'm pleased to announce a small update for the Lemmings Faithful styles.

The above download link has been updated to the new version.

I've added several new objects:

+Skill adders (Palace)
+Skill removers (Palace)
+Neutral adders (Palace)
+Neutral removers (Palace)
+Portals (Each world has its own coloured portal)
+An extra trap for circuit world

Spoiler

The skill adders and removers are adjustable - the height and hitbox can be adjusted.

Currently, the skill adder's height cannot be adjusted, as this resulted in graphical errors with the skill mask icon.
UPDATE - added a shorter version of the skill adder with a much smaller hitbox.

To avoid duplicates, the skill/neutral adders/removers are found in the 'Palace' theme.

Update - version 4
Massive update to the 'circuit' style - added a whole bunch of new terrain pieces, including more wire/cable varieties, braided wires, ribbon wires, computer chip components, diodes, segmented displays, computer fans and more!


The above download link has been updated to the new version.

Special thanks to GigaLem for a bunch of suggestions, and to tan x dx for suggesting the segmented displays!

Spoiler

Let me know what you think, or if there are any errors!

[Mobiethian]

These styles are all truly amazing! I love the art and the way that it all fits together. Beautiful work, I must say! I'm envious of this but yet proud of you! haha

[nin10doadict]

These look really nice for sure, and are easy to read as well. Great job

[Pieuw]

Awesome, this is truly impressive work!
My favorite may be Autumn, along with Mosaic and Palace. They look gorgeous!

[92Dexter11]

Thank you all so much for your kind words!

However, I must inform you that the old version had a mistakenly huge file size due to lack of compression/optimisation - this was a massive mistake on my end. If you've already downloaded the old version, please download the updated version 2 and replace the old files with the new ones. The new files are identical, just much smaller in size.

Thank you!

[WillLem]

These are just the sorts of styles we need - clear theme, beautifully crafted, high versatility. Excellent work, Dexter

[kieranmillar]

Phenomenal stuff. Wow!

[Mindless]

Autumn:  Very nice!  If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a style that they just forgot to ship with the original game.
Circuit:  It's alright.  Like the Brick style, the primary color is a little overpowering.  Brick has the advantage that it's used for real-world structures.
Mosaic:  I stared at this for a long while, and I almost can't believe that this follows the palette restrictions.  Marvelous!
Palace:  Not bad, but I think some of the the wood and marble textures could be a bit less realistic somehow.
Rust:  It looks monotonous yet very busy.  It's kinda depressing.  Taking parts from other styles and junking them was clever though.

My apologies if that was more negative feedback than you wanted.  Even my least favorite of these styles was better than a lot of styles I've seen over the years, so don't take it too harshly.

I really hope you'll make more of these palette-restricted styles in the future.  It really gives it that retro feel that I love.

[92Dexter11]

These are just the sorts of styles we need - clear theme, beautifully crafted, high versatility. Excellent work, Dexter

Phenomenal stuff. Wow!

Autumn:  Very nice!  If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a style that they just forgot to ship with the original game.
Circuit:  It's alright.  Like the Brick style, the primary color is a little overpowering.  Brick has the advantage that it's used for real-world structures.
Mosaic:  I stared at this for a long while, and I almost can't believe that this follows the palette restrictions.  Marvelous!
Palace:  Not bad, but I think some of the the wood and marble textures could be a bit less realistic somehow.
Rust:  It looks monotonous yet very busy.  It's kinda depressing.  Taking parts from other styles and junking them was clever though.

Thank you all for your kind and thoughtful words!

My apologies if that was more negative feedback than you wanted.  Even my least favorite of these styles was better than a lot of styles I've seen over the years, so don't take it too harshly.

Any and all feedback is much appreciated, even negative feedback as this helps me to improve my work in future, thank you!

I really hope you'll make more of these palette-restricted styles in the future.  It really gives it that retro feel that I love.

I think I definitely will do another pack like this again. In fact, I think all my new packs will be like this in the future, since I'm really proud of how it turned out. I don't have any plans to make any styles right now, however.


I've released a new update for the style pack, this is just a quick fix to correct an issue with the water in 'dex_circuit'.

[Mobiethian]

I'm actually making a new level pack using these styles only. Just wondering if I should release a demo. Very creative styles going on here! I admire your work!

[Mobiethian]

I've taken my demo topic down, it didn't save the final level changes. I'll have to do them over again. Done!

[mobius]

Incredible work! these look like original game material. If/when I continue work on my levelset, I must use these.

[Strato Incendus]

Both Autumn and Circuit look like new takes on existing tilesets; but given that each tileset includes its creator's user name, they should be easy to tell apart.

[WillLem]

Just noticed that the Rust set is a junkyard of pieces from some of the OG tilesets. The ketchup machine from Brick and the 10 Tons crusher from Dirt are in there. Nice touch

[92Dexter11]

Hey all! Just posting to say that an update for the styles has been released, see the OP for more details / the download link.

[ericderkovits]

Hi Dexter, Awesome job with the updated styles now with new objects. Definitely worth posting them to the styles update topic.

[GigaLem]

These new sets lit a fire in me that was missing for a while, and they've become one of the things that made me want to create levels again, but as good as these new sets are, there's an outlier in these sets that I struggle to make levels with. I hope I can be as constructive as possible.

I've been using the new sets for a while now and I thought the one set I'd have trouble using would've been Autumn as I struggle with rough terrain.

But I think my least favorite would have to be Circuit.

To explain, it doesn't feel like there is enough there, I had an easier time with combining LR2 Build with LR2 Gear. While there's Boards, Wires, plugs, batteries and chips, it feels like there pieces missing both aesthetically and functionally. There isn't much variety even with the limitations in mind. I find it a missed opportunity to not make pieces like caps, ram, ports, straight or different sized wires, sockets, Different chips types like processors, ribbon cables. Or objects like computer fans, heatsinks, and the unlock switches being based on power buttons for most pcs at the time.

Functionally while it feels complete, Aesthetically there just isn't enough there, its hard to make levels with this set because a bunch of functional pieces doesn't exist without tileset mixing. I get not wanting to make too much but I feel there needs to be more. Hoard, one of my favorite sets from the collection manages to fit three different aesthetics in a cohesive way, where they can mix and match and still be consistant with each other. I want to like this set but in my honest opinion, there isn't enough for me to work with, it lives and dies by its gimmick and it pains me to say that because of the high quality of these sets.

[92Dexter11]

To explain, it doesn't feel like there is enough there, I had an easier time with combining LR2 Build with LR2 Gear. While there's Boards, Wires, plugs, batteries and chips, it feels like there pieces missing both aesthetically and functionally. There isn't much variety even with the limitations in mind. I find it a missed opportunity to not make pieces like caps, ram, ports, straight or different sized wires, sockets, Different chips types like processors, ribbon cables. Or objects like computer fans, heatsinks, and the unlock switches being based on power buttons for most pcs at the time.

Functionally while it feels complete, Aesthetically there just isn't enough there, its hard to make levels with this set because a bunch of functional pieces doesn't exist without tileset mixing. I get not wanting to make too much but I feel there needs to be more. Hoard, one of my favorite sets from the collection manages to fit three different aesthetics in a cohesive way, where they can mix and match and still be consistant with each other. I want to like this set but in my honest opinion, there isn't enough for me to work with, it lives and dies by its gimmick and it pains me to say that because of the high quality of these sets.

That's fair.

To be honest, since release, I've had an issue with circuit in that the 'wire' terrain pieces aren't very intuitive and are hard to work with.

Circuit was the last style I completed for Lemmings Faithful, and it was a little rushed/unfinished because of the whole issue I had with reducing the palette size.
At one point circuit was going to have 'organic' terrain pieces (that is, non-blocky terrain like dirt) which was a big tangled mess of wires, but this was scrapped because it didn't read well and were hard to tile.

I might make a small update at some point in the future adding more wires and electrical components. 

[GigaLem]

I probably should've mentioned brackets, and chips on their sides or chip sockets, but I digress, guess im not alone in my statement. I'd be interested in seeing how this set can be touched up, I even tried to find the computer levels from 3D Lemmings to see what examples I could've brought. I possibly even looked at 90s computers too.

[92Dexter11]

Hey all, another update for circuit style! See the OP for details.

If you don't want to download all the other styles again, you can just download the updates to dex_circuit as a standalone, attached to this reply.

Let me know if there are any issues!